Bay Area artist/light designer Elaine Buckholtz stands between two of the volunteer homes that allowed her to light them as part of The Urban Unseen project sponsored by USF. Thursday Feb. 25, 2010 the event took place in San Francisco in the 1900 block of Golden Gate Avenue. less

Bay Area artist/light designer Elaine Buckholtz stands between two of the volunteer homes that allowed her to light them as part of The Urban Unseen project sponsored by USF. Thursday Feb. 25, 2010 the event ... more

Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle

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Spectators Left to right, Lora Bandala, Alejandra Bandala, Annie Tull and TJ Difarancesco shared a blanket as they look in the light show by Bay Area artist/light designer Elaine Buckholtz as part of The Urban Unseen project sponsored by USF. Thursday Feb. 25, 2010 the event took place in San Francisco in the 1900 block of Golden Gate Avenue. less

Spectators Left to right, Lora Bandala, Alejandra Bandala, Annie Tull and TJ Difarancesco shared a blanket as they look in the light show by Bay Area artist/light designer Elaine Buckholtz as part of The Urban ... more

Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle

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Spaces between homes in the 1900 block of San FranciscoÕs Golden Gate Avenue are illuminated Bay Area artist/light designer Elaine Buckholtz as part of The Urban Unseen project sponsored by USF. Thursday Feb. 25, 2010. less

Spaces between homes in the 1900 block of San FranciscoÕs Golden Gate Avenue are illuminated Bay Area artist/light designer Elaine Buckholtz as part of The Urban Unseen project sponsored by USF. Thursday Feb. ... more

Photo: Lance Iversen, The Chronicle

Image 4 of 4

Art finds the space between S.F. Victorians

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San Francisco architecture Professor Tanu Sankalia had long been intrigued by things commonly unseen - by images of the insides of bottles, the back of bookshelves, the space under a chair.

For four years, Sankalia has fixed his gaze on San Francisco's Victorians. But instead of looking at the famous facades, he has studied the spaces in between, called "slots."

"What I'm trying to say is there is something besides the interesting facade," said Sankalia, who is 40 and was schooled and trained in India. "Looking at the slot creates a whole new narrative of sight and place."

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Sankalia has made a study of 11 neighborhoods across San Francisco, documenting more than 1,000 slots. The study is part of a new show he curated at the University of San Francisco, where he teaches. Called "The Urban Unseen," the exhibition brings together architects and artists to examine the spaces between San Francisco's famous houses. It asks the viewer to take notice of something typically overlooked.

"It's ironical," Sankalia noted, "that we celebrate these facades because the spaces stand out. If the slots weren't there, we wouldn't read the facade."

The idea was sparked years ago when Sankalia was walking the city's neighborhoods in search of something new to bring to the classroom. He became interested in the way the city had been laid out, with its long, narrow lots.

"I began to study these spaces, created between 1850 and 1890," he said of the Victorian slots. "Typically, a lot is 25 feet wide and up to 138 feet deep. The slots were a way to get light and ventilation deep inside a lot."

By isolating slots in a neighborhood - as he and his students have done in drawings and models for the USF show - patterns begin to emerge. As Sankalia says, "Slots break the continual street wall made by row houses and create a distinct percussive rhythm of alternating positive form and negative space."

Types of slots range from single straight and single angular to double equal and angular staggered. He found that in cities including Boston, New York and London, where row houses are common, there are no slots.

"You can get into the taxonomy of these spaces, and into urban mythology of how a city is made," Sankalia said, standing in the USF library where the show is being held. "These spaces, or slots, become one of the smallest discernible parts of the city. They are vital to the urban form."

Sankalia found inspiration in the work of philosophers, artists and sociologists, including the German Jewish philosopher Walter Benjamin, who looked past the great monuments of Paris to focus instead on unexamined areas of street life.

Sankalia admired the work of British artist Rachel Whiteread, who has created sculptures from the space inside a bottle, from inside books on a shelf, and from behind pillows and mattresses. And he appreciated the work of artist Bruce Nauman, who taught at the San Francisco Art Institute in the late 1960s and created a cast of the space under his chair.

"Nauman's piece made you ponder negative space," Sankalia said, walking through the exhibition. "He gave the negative space a positive form."

As part of "The Urban Unseen" show, Bay Area artist Elaine Buckholtz created an installation of light that focused on three slots on Golden Gate Avenue, near Baker Street. The installation was held on two nights in late February, and the slots between the Victorians were lit by wide-beam theatrical lights.

"We thought the slots were so beautiful on their own that we could just frame them with perfect white light," said Buckholtz, who teaches at Stanford. "I thought the concept of this show was incredible, to treat negative space as positive and make the foreground muted. I love how this shows there is something beautiful behind what is everyday."

Another participant in the show is artist Paul Madonna (whose All Over Coffee drawings run in The Chronicle). Madonna said that he has long been fascinated with "things we walk by every day and don't see." Many of his drawings feature the city's buildings, and the spaces in between.

"Once you start looking, you see that the slots add personality, and they are unique to San Francisco," Madonna said.